


Most Irregular

by Brick



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, WWII, mission!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brick/pseuds/Brick
Summary: Of course, it all went to hell, but Peggy was always better at improvisation, anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art Post: Most Irregular](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11192424) by [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily). 



> Written for the 2017 RBB. Many thanks for my artist's patience. 
> 
> **Warning:** this is about as historically accurate as the MCU. Possibly less so.

Peggy’s first impression of Albert was that he was unbearably French. She hadn’t changed her mind.

“Do you have intelligence we do not, Élodie?” he said, drawing himself to his full five-foot-three. “Perhaps from Churchill?” He was a towering personality, but a squat little body, and when he squawked like this, Peggy thought of a fat crow with stubby legs scolding her from the heights of some tall tree.

Peggy said nothing. Appropriately, as that’s exactly what she’d heard from HQ, and the cocky little crow knew it. But her point stood about the courier. It was a prime target, and they had intelligence that he would be passing well within their reach.

She tried once more to make her case. “A message is being passed—“

“I have heard this—“ Albert began.

“—is being passed by _hand_ from France to Germany. You don’t want to read it?”

“I won’t expose us for the chance of a chance of reading some Gestapo’s love letters.”

“Then I’ll go.”

He scoffed and turned to one of their audience, pleading for sanity. The others in the group – businessmen, postal workers, secretaries, refugees – watched the two of them spar with closed mouths.

“If you cannot risk your people, risk me. I’ve been trained.”

“ _Trained_ , is that so?” He glared at her. Albert sliced his hand through the air. “We’ve discussed it. No.”

Peggy met his gaze until he looked away, but she didn’t press the point.

 _They sent me for this_ , she wanted to say, but wouldn’t.

So they’d sent her, but what was that? A favor? An SOE agent -- but green as grass. An SOE agent, trained in espionage and sabotage -- but still a woman. Perhaps her gender wouldn’t have mattered but for the persistent silence from HQ.

She’d never say it, but it unnerved her. It meant she’d been made, one way or another. And now she had nothing to do but wait to find out how and by whom. To wonder if she was even now putting the Resistance in danger of discovery. Or she could run.

She wouldn’t run.

The assembled left the meeting in ones and twos, as they had entered. They moved their gathering places frequently. Today, they met in the basement of a local hotel, the sort of place with exquisite wallpaper and dirty linens. The owners housed refugees waiting for their turn on a boat to Britain or America.

She left last and slipped onto the streets of Marseille.

In the glass window of a restaurant, she glanced at the crowd behind her, and something felt…off. She searched the faces behind her before beginning to walk again, maintaining her pace.

She took a sharp left.

In the window of an apartment, she glanced at the people behind her and noticed only two who had followed her turn. One of them she recognized from their meeting. She flexed her hands but kept them loose and at her sides, ready to reach for the knife tucked in the slit of her skirt.

There was a café ahead. She chose a table and slid into a chair, not watching as the man from the meeting approached.

She looked up from the menu when he slid into the chair across from her. He smiled at her. Peggy smiled back as if she had been waiting for him. She lifted out of her seat, and they brushed cheeks. Anyone watching would think they were old friends.  

He was a rawboned sort of Frenchman who went by Jacques Dernier among the Resistance, though who could say if that was his name. Peggy knew nothing else about him, really, except that he had a cheerful skill with explosives that made Peggy both fond and anxious.

“How nice to see you again,” Peggy said.

“And to see you, _mademoiselle_ , is always a pleasure.” His eyes crinkled at the corners.

The waiter interrupted to take their orders. Peggy hadn’t intended to eat, and she guess that neither had Dernier, but he ordered food and drink like he was settling in for the night. Peggy matched him, if only to make their charade credible.

It took another few minutes of small talk before Dernier got to the point.

“I think, if it exists, I would like to read a love letter so important it must be handled only by a trusted friend. So important, it cannot be trusted to a train, or a mailbag, or an airplane.” He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “A great passion.”  

“Indeed.” She couldn’t help but narrow her eyes. “I’m surprised at you. I hadn’t know you were so sentimental, old friend.”

“No.” Dernier shrugged. “Only nosy.” He took a pointed bite of his meal.

With the twitch of a smile on her lips, Peggy excused herself to go the bathroom and write down a rendezvous location on a napkin. She wrote it in lipstick that Dernier could handily smear once he’d read it.

Crow or no crow, Peggy thought, she was going to read that letter.

*

They met once more before the mission, sitting in an empty room of a discrete apartment building. Upstairs, half a dozen artists and other degenerates pretended not to exist, and the landlord pretended he could not count his tenants. She and Dernier shared a map and marked where they would intercept the courier based on the intelligence they had of the planned route. Not that such reports were infallible, but it was the best they had to go on.

In the end, they couldn’t plan better than a pair of highwaymen. They would intercept the courier in a shady, isolated bend of the route some kilometers outside Marseille. Dernier had a friend who had also agreed with Peggy at the meeting, but hadn’t wanted to speak against his leader and friends. Fair enough, Peggy thought. The friend would bring a car and park it in the woods. They would set upon the courier and bring him back to the friend’s house nearby for questioning.

Of course, it all went to hell, but Peggy was always better at improvisation, anyway.

*

Peggy began to doubt the moment she met Dernier’s friend. Henri was a member of their circle – a barber, she believed – a reedy man with a mouth as wide as a fish’s. Not a bad sort. He’d said little in their meetings and less to her directly. He seemed determined to make up for his silence in one go as they drove from Marseille to their interception point. He babbled about food and about Albert’s disagreeable attitude and about how much he hated the Nazis.

It was only once they were truly in the woods could Peggy convince him to keep his trap shut by gently reminding him this was a covert operation.

They waited for hours, wilting in the heat.

When Dernier spotted the courier moving up the road, he signaled. By then, Peggy could hear the grumbling of the courier’s motorcycle.

“Move, move,” she urged Henri, and he slid the car across the road, blocking traffic in either direction. It would only be a moment before the courier rounded the bend and saw the obstruction, so Peggy took advantage and slipped out of the car.

She and Henri posed by the front tire, looking lost and distressed. The motorcycle rounded the bend and began to slow. Peggy felt a swoop of relief. The ruse had worked. Enough, at least, that the courier wasn’t immediately drawing a weapon.

Peggy raised a hand as if to flag the courier down. She didn’t expect that someone entrusted with important missives was about to dismount for any reason, but Peggy knew the key to a role was commitment, and she was going to commit right up until the last moment.

As Peggy lifted her arm, she saw something glint off to her right.

She looked – Henri had lifted his arm as well, and the sun glinted off the barrel of a pistol tucked into his slacks.

She prayed the courier had overlooked such a small detail, but she knew she was out of luck when the courier reached into their saddle bag and emerged with a pistol.

They’d chosen this spot deliberately. Deep ditches and woods on either side. A blind turn. A road narrow enough that they could block it. The courier could hardly accelerate over their car – but he could certainly go through them.

Peggy dove behind the car as the courier opened fire.

The sound cracked through the air again – again – hitting metal and dirt – and then once more – again – with a meaty sound that made Peggy gasp.

She glanced toward Henri. He lay face down in the road. She looked away.

Peggy hunched over the top of the car and returned fire, aiming for the courier’s tires and legs. The scent of gunfire burned Peggy’s nose and down her throat.

One of her bullets hit a tire, and the courier jerked, his motorcycle jerking out from under him and sliding across the road.

They were close now, no more than a few yards, so Peggy raced toward him. She kept her gun extended.

Down the road, she could see Dernier running toward them, finally making it from his observation point.

The courier crawled away from their downed bike, dragging one leg behind them. Peggy could see his face now – red and twisted with pain. He braced himself against the ground. With his free hand, he pointed his gun, and Peggy swore. How had he kept hold of that?

She pushed herself into a dead sprint as the courier opened fire.

The shots went wide. The man’s arms shook with the effort of holding the gun and his own bodyweight. Peggy was almost upon him, now. At such close range, it would have been child’s play to shoot out the man’s knee and take him.

It was just then that Dernier had nearly reached their location. Turning on to the road behind him was another car. A military transport.

Peggy’s heart jumped into her throat.

She measured the distance between the courier, Dernier, and their own car. Too far. Too much trouble to peel the courier off the ground and haul him. Not enough time.

“Run!” She heard Dernier shout, waving his hand. “Go!”

Peggy shot the courier in the head. His body drooped into his splatter.

She turned toward the oncoming vehicle and aimed carefully at the tires. With a soft hand, breathing as smoothly as she could manage. she began to squeeze out the rounds.

“Get in the fucking truck!” Dernier screamed.

Peggy glared down the road and fired again, and this time she hit. The tire went out on the truck, the driver swerved, and they plowed straight into the ditch on the side of the road.

Peggy hunched down and grabbed the courier’s messenger bag, hugging it to her chest one-armed as she finally ran back to their car.

Down the road, men climbed out of the steaming truck. A gunshot buzzed past Peggy’s ankle as she dove into the car’s front seat. She cranked it on. She slouched into the seat, barely able to see over the steering wheel, making herself as small as possible.

Yanking the steering wheel around, she gunned the car down the road, closer to the transport, and closer to Dernier. She nearly clipped him as she drove up beside.

Dernier had barely planted both feet inside the vehicle before Peggy pressed the accelerator yet harder, shooting past the Germans.

 “Henri—“ she started, but Dernier slammed his hand against the door.

“Drive.”

A bullet shattered a back passenger window. One left a hole in the door with crunch.

Beside her, Dernier was already fishing inside the messenger bag, rifling through papers and diagrams.

No love letters, Peggy thought.

They’re out of range and half a click down the road when they met two more trucks full of _carlingue_.

When they ran, the bastards shot the tires out from under them.

When they slammed open the doors and tried on foot, the bastards shot out their legs.

They bound Peggy’s arms and feet and tied her a tourniquet so at least she wouldn’t bleed out. They wanted her alive.

They tossed them in the back of a truck. A man with a pistol sat with them and watched, waiting for them to collude. They barely looked at each other.

The blood loss and the adrenaline making her dizzy, Peggy clenched her fists. She breathed deeply and focused on the feel of her nails biting into her palms. There was broken glass in her hair. She could still smell the bullets.

They wanted her alive.

*

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

They stopped at a country house a few kilometers away. She couldn’t see around but hills and distant homes.  

In the house, they took her to a room with a doctor in it. At least, she hoped it was a doctor. The man removed her tourniquet and began to poke around her leg. Peggy passed out. When she came back to life, the doctor was gone. There was a bandage on her leg.

A boy who was failing to grow beard moved her, step by limping step, from the back bedroom to the front of the house. Her hands weren’t bound. She thought about knocking him aside. She tested her weight on her leg, and the pain shot through her so suddenly, she nearly passed out again, and the boy had to catch her around the waist. She gritted her teeth.

Out the front window, she saw the men loitering with their guns. 

She sat at a wooden kitchen table in a sunny kitchen while uniforms milled around her. They gave her water from the same pitcher they used, so she drank it. It tasted like dirt, so there must be a well. She didn’t see Dernier, and she didn’t ask after him. Let them imagine any connection they pleased.

She tested her leg again, breathing through clenched teeth. This was the only time to run. This was it, was it, was it, she thought.

She tried to guess which of the men had the car keys.

The sun was beginning to set when the boy appeared again and helped her to her feet. She leaned hard against his shoulder, exaggerating her limp.

When he turned away from her to open the door to the car, she broke into a sprint toward the other vehicle. She almost managed to grab the handle before her knee wobbled.

She tripped.

The agony that burst from her thigh pressed tears from her eyes like juice. She gasped and crawled toward the car door until a larger man grabbed her elbows and hauled her to her feet.

When they tossed her into the truck, she was relieved to see that Dernier was there too. His eye was swollen, that glorious idiot. He looked down at her leg and saw the bandage that was coming loose, and spots of pink and red blossomed on it. They smiled wryly at one another.

The boy climbed in with them and took out his pistol.

*

Even as they lost the light, it was easy to see that they were not returning to the city.

They lost the other truck at a fork in the road some two hours from the country house.

The man with the pistol gave them both a sip of water. He didn’t drink any himself.

*

Peggy awoke and immediately tried to swallow, feeling as though the sides of her throat were scraping against each other. She touched her throat and realized she wasn’t bound. Her leg felt…shot.

She put her hands flat and pushed herself up. There were rough boards under her palms. A folded piece of fabric was left under her head. She was surrounded by darkness. The only light filtered in from around the door.

Knowing it was pointless, she crawled to the door and tried to turn the handle. Locked. She ran her hands through her hair, but they’d taken her pins. They hadn’t shaken out all the glass, though, and Peggy sucked at her newly sliced finger while she inspected the rest of her cell.

Every tiny movement sent a jolt of pain from her leg. She tried not to move it, saving herself should she have to jump into action. If she should get the opportunity.

No windows. A bucket in the corner, which was a mercy. The cell itself was as large as her boarding school dorm. Feeling along the floor, she could tell that some part of the wood were smoother than others. She traced the rougher patches with her hands, feeling out their edges.  There used to be furniture there.

This place wasn’t torture. Peggy felt uneasy.

Perhaps that was the purpose, she thought. To keep her off balance. To provide comfort so that the lack of it would be felt all the more keenly.

She plastered herself to the floor and tried to peer out the seams around the door, but all she saw was yellow light. She tried to pry at the hinges, but they were stuck fast.

She dragged herself gingerly back to her scrap of blanket. She lay back down and felt for the roughest board near her. With her fingernails, careful of splinters, she began to gently pry at the edge.

Hours later, she slept despite herself, a long, thin strip of wood tucked into her blouse. It had a reassuringly jagged tip. 

*

There was no window, so Peggy couldn’t tell how much time had passed when she awoke. It was still dark. The door still glowed. She crawled to the corner and used the bucket, then crawled back to the fabric.

Using the wall as leverage, she got to her feet and began to pace around the room, placing her feet toe-to-heel, counting out the dimensions of her prison.

She lay her ear against the door and closed her eyes. Peggy heard the sounds of large things scraping together a long way off – machines? A factory? A farm? – but no voices.

She sat down with her back against the door and licked her dry lips.

In a few minutes, she stood again. She put her weigh ton her injured leg, swallowing down a scream, and kicked at the door with her uninjured one. It jarred her ankle, but made no difference. She kicked again and again, until she felt the percussion ringing in her bones, but the door wouldn’t break and the handle wouldn’t loosen. No one came to investigate.  

Peggy sat down again, breathing hard.

*

Peggy slept again, and the next time she woke, it was to the sound of a key turning in a lock. She groped at the wall behind her and struggled to her feet. The strip of wood tucked into the sleeve of her blouse. There was a scraping sound as a bolt was drawn back on the door.

Peggy put her hand over her face to shield her eyes, and she felt the rush of air as the door swung open. Behind her hand, she blinked, slowly opening her fingers to allow her sight to adjust.

A woman stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a light blue dress and held a tray with a canteen and a sandwich on top of it. The woman smiled.

“Good morning, Peggy.” She spoke English. No accent.

Peggy put a hand against the wall to steady herself, but said nothing. Her heart raced. _Elodie_ was her name here. _Elodie_.

The woman’s smile faded, and she looked down at the canteen. Nodded.

“I understand,” she said. “This is all very…uncomfortable.”

Peggy said nothing again, only practiced moving her weight on her legs and visualized how she might brain the woman with that serving tray.

“My name’s Aileen,” she said. “There’s food here.” She hoisted the tray. “It’s safe, but the water is drugged. We’ll check your leg while you’re asleep.”

Peggy said nothing and thought about Dernier’s swollen eye.

The woman bent to set the tray on the ground, and Peggy lunged forward, crashing her elbow down on the top of the woman’s head.

Or, she tried.

The woman swerved, and when Peggy scrambled for the door, she grabbed her by the hair. She hauled her back into the room, using Peggy’s momentum to throw her back against the far wall.

Aileen backed out of the room, her hands out in front of her.  Her breath shook as she grabbed the door. She slammed it shut. Peggy heard the lock click and the bar drag back into place.

“I’ll see you soon,” said the voice beyond the door, shaking.

Peggy leaned against the wall, panted, and squeezed her leg.

Aileen sounded like she’d gone to public school. She fought like she was trained.

Peggy considered eating the sandwich and emptying the water into her bucket. She imagined lying in wait, pretending to be drugged. Would Aileen be the one to collect her? If she was, could Peggy take her by surprise?

Peggy ate the sandwich and drank the water. She couldn’t do anything if she didn’t get out of this room. 

*

Peggy’s body felt wooden and her thoughts felt fuzzy. She lolled her head to the opposite shoulder and blinked her eyes, trying to sharpen the image in front of her and corral her wandering thoughts.

She wasn’t in the cell.

She was in an office. There was a metal desk to her right, covered in a ledger and stacks of paper. There was a bookcase to her left.

She could feel the wooden legs of the chair against her calves, and the roughness of the rope that tied her arms and – she tested her restrains – strung them to her ankles. Above the desk was a window, and through it Peggy could see the struts and hanging fixtures of a factory ceiling. The sound of scraping was louder, here. It smelled faintly of metal and paper. And antiseptic.

She looked down at her wound and found a fresh dressing.

The office door opened.

Aileen walked in. She was wearing a different dress. This one was maroon. It must be a different day. A man followed her inside. He wore the uniform of a _carlingue_. Peggy swallowed around her heavy tongue and steeled herself. 

“Would you like a glass of water?” asked Aileen. There was a canteen slung around her shoulder.

“I’d like to be awake for this.” Peggy’s head was beginning to clear.

Aileen smiled with a closed mouth. She opened the canteen and took a drink. The three of them waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

Aileen approached with the canteen. She pressed it to Peggy’s lips. There was another long moment as Peggy tilted her head back and drank.

Aileen replaced the cap of the canteen and leaned against the metal desk. The man in the uniform hadn’t said a word since he’d walked in, only stood stiffly by the door. He had blue eyes, she noted. They were small and alert.  They watched her intently.

“Peggy Carter,” said the man.

Peggy said nothing.

“How interesting.” He moved into the room and leaved against the bookcase. There were no other chairs. “You don’t deny it.”

She’d been trained for interrogations. By all rights she should be trying to convince them she was Elodie, a young clerk who’d fled to Marseille. That this was all a giant mistake. But then, it was difficult to deny the evidence – the courier, the car, the papers.

There was a not insignificant part of her that wanted to know, too, how they knew the name Peggy Carter. It wasn’t a special name. It wasn’t a name known to anyone in the south of France. Or it shouldn’t be.

“Do you know where you are, Ms. Carter?”

“France,” she said.

He laughed. Aileen smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “France.” He smoothed down his moustache and considered her. Peggy lifted her chin and met his gaze.

“Aileen told me you would be worth the trouble,” he said. “I admit, I had my doubts. But I’m impressed by your performance.”

“I’m flattered.” Peggy curled his wrists in her restraints, careful not to move her shoulders. She pulled the ropes taught and tested them. Firm and tight, damn it all. 

“We’d like to show you something,” he said.

Aileen pushed away from the desk, as if that were a cue. She bent over Peggy’s legs and produced a pocketknife from her dress. She cut the ties that held Peggy to the chair, and before Peggy could bring her knee up into Aileen’s face, she put the knife against the inside of Peggy’s thigh.

“Listen for a moment,” she said. She was looking up at Peggy, kneeling on the floor between her feet. “Just listen.”

Aileen held her eyes for a moment. “My alias is Aileen Baker.” She switched to French. “I’m here for the beaches and wine.”

Peggy’s face twisted with disgust. It was a parole – a passphrase used between agents to identify each other. Aileen Baker was an SOE agent. Judging by her phrase – which was up to date as far as Peggy knew – she was a double agent. Then again, Peggy wasn’t up to date. She was months behind the latest communication. And know she knew why.

“How do you know me?” she demanded. Even among agents, real identities were not common knowledge. Aileen would need a leak higher up – inside the schools or even Baker Street itself. 

Aileen nodded, as if she’d expected Peggy’s reaction. She stood and looked down at Peggy. “I told you so you would know who you’re talking to, and what it means when I say that I’ve been where you are.” She glanced once at the man in the uniform. “And so that you don’t try anything stupid.”

She flexed her hold on the pocketknife. “I was top of my class.”

“I’m sure your instructors are very proud,” Peggy snapped.

Aileen’s smirk faded. She stepped back. “The only reason you’re not enjoying the hospitality of Marseille’s Gestapo right now is because Matieu and I saw your potential. You’re alive because we say so, Carter.”

Aileen gestured with the pocketknife. “Stand up.”

Peggy did, slowly, balancing herself as best she could with her arms tied. Aileen took her shoulder and guided her forward. They turned toward the window.

It was a factory, as Peggy had expected. But strange. The factory floor stretched out below them, cavernous, but every corner was filled with a machine. Around the machines bustled workers in aprons, some brandishing tools, other with gloves. Peggy saw a table of lab equipment. She saw ammunition. Rifles. There was a hulking shape in one corner that she thought might be a tank. And near the far end, nearest the bay doors that would open for trucks, pallets were stacked high. The stamps on those pallets looked familiar – and Peggy squinted, sure she wasn’t seeing correctly.

“There,” said Aileen, pointing toward the far end. “You see it.”

Peggy didn’t know what she saw. One pallet was stamped with the familiar symbol of the German Army. But next to it, a pallet was stamped with the insignia of the United Kingdom.

“Who are you people?” Peggy asked in a hushed voice.

It was Matieu who spoke. “We are the people fighting for a better world, Agent Carter.”

“Looks to me like you’re betting on both sides and waiting to see who wins.”

“You don’t see it,” said Aileen. “Not yet. But you will.”

“You’re right,” said Matieu. “We supply both sides. We supply every side, because we are everywhere. Or we will be.

“Imagine this, Agent Carter, a group of men and women, connected, driven by a common goal of peace, spread throughout the governments and militaries of every world power. These little trinkets,” he gestured at the factory. “These buy us good will. They provide time for us to grow.”

“And in the mean time, never mind what the Nazis do with the rifles and bombs.” She glared at Aileen. “To your people.”

“Or what we do to the Germans?” said Aileen. “Tell me, Peggy, what will you do when the war ends? Will you go home? Will you raise your children to be good soldiers?”

“I’ll raise my children to have honor.”

The light was dim in the office. It fell against Aileen’s face and made her eyes seem wide and wet. “When you shot that young man in the head for a bundle of papers, was that honor?”

Peggy clenched her jaw.

“I did things for my country,” said Aileen, “that I see at night. That haunt me. I think, perhaps, you have seen them too. It has to be that way, now. It doesn’t have to be that way always. We can stop it.”

Peggy looked out at the factory floor and said nothing.

“Think on it,” said Matieu. “In the morning, we’ll talk again.”

Aileen led her out of the room. The pocketknife had disappeared. Instead, she held a pistol. She didn’t keep it at the ready, but it stayed in the open air, naked in her hand. She gestured with her other hand to show Peggy where to turn.

They went down a set of short steps and took another turn. The smell changed –  a dormitory, Peggy realized. She could recognize the scent of humans living on top of each other, familiar to her since her time at boarding school. Voices buzzed behind two closed doors. The workers?

Aileen led her past the dorms and down another hallway. She paused in front of one of the doors and gestured for Peggy to open it.

Peggy suspected that it was not her cell, but she wasn’t sure what to expect from her captors, now.

She opened the door. Inside, she found a room no bigger than her cell. There was a cot pushed against the wall, low to the ground. There was a pillow. A bucket in the corner. Hanging from the ceiling was a light bulb with a string.

Aileen slit Peggy’s restraints with her knife and closed the door before Peggy could react. The lock clicked.

Peggy reached up and felt for the string. She turned on the light.

Her shoulders ached and her wrists smarted, but it was nothing compared to her leg. She sat down on the cot and stretched her leg out in front of her. As she rubbed at her calf and thigh, she considered her surroundings.

She’d expected to be beaten and drowned. She wondered if Aileen had expected that, too, when this – whatever this was – this _group_  approached her. How long ago had she been turned? Surely not before Peggy had been inserted into France. But after. Long enough to either block Peggy’s communications or to be discovered by the home office and disowned. Maybe they thought Peggy was tainted, too. Maybe they’d abandoned her. Branded her a traitor.

Thank God Michael was dead, she thought.

Thinking of Michael wouldn’t help.

He expected so much of her. She had held that inside her through her training. Hungry and cold, she’d thought of Michael and how he’d called her a fighter. How he’d been so sure of her character. It was true, in their childhood games, it had been Michael who would make peace. Who would go in for dinner. Who suggested they sometimes play pirates and not soldiers. Peggy always wanted to play soldiers.

She wondered what Michael might think of Aileen and Matieu.

Her leg felt a little better.

She considered the door. The lock didn’t seem as strong, but her leg wasn’t stronger, either. She could ram the cot against it, but it might make a racket. She was sure to run into workers if she went down that hallway past their dorms. There was sure to be an exit, but she wasn’t sure where it was.

They said they’d speak in the morning.

Peggy pulled the string for the light and lay down on the cot.

Somewhere in this place, was Dernier considering his dead?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Peggy woke before Aileen opened the door. She ran her hands through her hair, shaking out the last of the debris. She didn’t want to imagine what her makeup must look like at this point, but she did her best to brush off her clothes.

When Aileen came to collect her, she was standing at attention and ready. Aileen’s eyebrows shot up when she saw her.

“There was no honor in it,” said Peggy. Quietly: “I don’t want to raise soldiers.”

Aileen considered her. “I’m glad to hear it.” She gestured out the door. She was holding her pistol. “Let’s get something to eat.”

*

They passed a few of the workers in the hallway. Two women with their hair pinned back, wearing coveralls. They both spared a look for Aileen’s pistol, but didn’t say a word. No help there, thought Peggy. They didn’t seem like forced laborers, and they were smart enough to mind their own business.

They passed by an open hall -- a small cafeteria. A few tables were set parallel to each other. They were mostly empty, but a few workers sat on the benches, talking and spooning oatmeal out of bowls.

Aileen and Peggy sat down at the end of one. It was a clever thing, Peggy thought. Aileen thought she wouldn’t act if she’d endanger the workers. Or maybe she thought the others would come to her aid. Or maybe she just wasn’t afraid of Peggy.

An attendant set two bowls of oatmeal in front of them along with a pair of spoons. The smell of warm cinnamon wafted in Peggy’s face, and her mouth watered.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Peggy watched Aileen’s face, waiting for something to break her serenity. She listened to the conversation of the workers. They spoke in a pidgin of French and English. Their accents were a muddle of nations. Aileen watched her listen, wearing that tranquil, self-satisfied expression that Peggy had so hated on her teachers’ faces as a child. That expression that said she was glad you were finally catching on to an obvious truth.

She was nearly finished with her breakfast when she saw a man walk into the cafeteria wearing a uniform and holding a pistol. He walked behind Dernier, whose hands were bound.

Peggy’s heart leapt to see him, even in this state. Aileen turned in her seat to see what had caught Peggy’s attention.

“Did you think we killed him?”

“No,” said Peggy. “Maybe.”

Dernier had seen her now. He looked as pleased and shocked as she felt.

Peggy glanced at Aileen, considering if she could afford to push her luck. “May I speak with him?”

Aileen looked at her in silence for a long moment, but then turned in her seat and raised a hand, flagging down the young man with the gun. Obediently, he brought his prisoner to their table.

Aileen’s pistol reemerged from her pocket, and after relinquishing his charge at the table, the young man went to fetch breakfast.

Dernier and Peggy looked between each other and Aileen.

“Go on,” said Aileen. “Speak.”

The prisoners stared at one another.

Dernier looked down at Peggy’s empty bowl and then her unbound hands.

He looked back up at her with hurt and confusion in her eyes.

“They’re not Nazis,” said Peggy. “Apparently.”

“Apparently,” Dernier agreed. He shifted on his bench. No doubt his shoulders ached.

“Are you hurt?”

Dernier thought about the question. “No. You?”

“No.”

Aileen’s spoon scraped softly against the bottom of her bowl.

“Did you get the tour?” said Dernier, looking again at her wrists.

“Some,” said Peggy.

Dernier’s guard returned with a bowl of breakfast and slipped into the seat beside Peggy. That way he could keep a clear view of Dernier.

“I’m sorry about Henri.” The words slipped out before Peggy could help it.

Dernier nodded. “Me too.”

“Why did you bring him?” she asked, shaking her head.

“He asked,” said Dernier. “He had a car. His house was nearby.” Dernier looked down at his hands. 

“Fool,” said Peggy. She swallowed against the rising thickness in her throat.

“Me or him?”

Peggy just shook her head. Both. Her. All of them.

“All right,” said Aileen. She stood up from the table. “Shall we?”

Peggy stood up as well. Dernier stared at her, and then looked to Aileen. He looked between them. “Elodie?”

Aileen began to walk away, and Peggy began to follow.

_“Elodie?”_

There was a crash, and Peggy looked around. Dernier was standing up, the bench dumped on its side behind him. His guard stood, too. His hand was on his pistol.  

“Sit down,” the man snarled. He had a German accent. But Dernier was looking at her. His eyes demanded an answer.

She shook her head. “Just…listen to them, Dernier. You’ll understand.”

He was speechless. He watched with a blank look as Peggy limped out of the room.

*

In the hallway, Aileen stood against the wall, her arms crossed. Peggy met her eyes squarely.

“So, you are convinced,” said Aileen.

“You convinced me.”

“I’m flattered,” said Aileen flatly.

Peggy shifted her weight. The smell and sounds of the cafeteria drifted out to meet them. She listened for Dernier’s voice, but didn’t hear it.

“I’m not an idiot, Carter. You’re plotting. That’s good. You’re smart, and we need you for that. You’re smart enough that you wouldn’t be convinced with a grand speech and a night with a pillow under your head.”

“What do you want from me?” said Peggy. “Blood sacrifice?”

Aileen tapped her fingers against her arm. She pushed herself away from the wall. “No. I want to convince you. Come with me.”

For the first time, Peggy walked behind her.

*

Aileen took a key from around her neck to unlock the door to the office. She waved Peggy inside and gestured to the only chair.

Gingerly, Peggy lowered herself to the seat, taking in the room in slices, trying to remember each part. She shifted against the chair and thought at the strangeness of it. She could almost feel the ropes around her wrists again.

Aileen went to the desk and selected another key from her necklace. She opened a drawer and emerged with a file that Peggy recognized. It was still smudged with dirt and blood from the courier who had carried it. Looking now, Peggy should see a paper sticking out from the top. There was a diagram – a chemical composition, Peggy recognized – and half of a word: _Ersk--._

Aileen knelt for a long moment, shuffling through the drawer, and finally standing with another, slimmer file in her hands. This one she handed to Peggy.

The file folder was smooth in her hands. Peggy looked at Aileen with a blank expression.

“Look,” said Aileen.

So Peggy did.

Inside, fastened against the first page, was a photograph of her brother. Peggy’s eyes jumped up to Aileen, who looked back at her with that same smug face she’d worn earlier.

The first page was an observation log. Her brother’s comings and goings at – she swallowed hard – at the factory. She flipped to the next page. It was a continued log, only here, at the bottom, she saw two letters, twisted together in familiar sloppy loops: her brothers initials, MC.

She touched her fingertips to the letters.

Aileen hefted the other folder and straightened out the pages, hiding the sheet with the chemical formula. “His work was invaluable to us,” she said. “The courier you ambushed, he was delivering documents on a project,” she gestured with the folder, “that would have never been possible without Michael.”

His name sounded strange on her lips. Peggy wasn’t sure she liked the sound of it.

“He worked here,” said Peggy. “You’re saying he was one of you.” She shook her head. “You expect me to believe this?”

“Peggy,” said Aileen. “How do you think I knew your name?”

Peggy looked up from the folder.

“He told me to look for you. He told me you were a fighter.”

The air seemed thin. Hard to breathe. Peggy placed the folder on the metal desk and stood. Aileen didn’t stop her.

Peggy leaned against the desk, looking out the observation window and watching the workers load weapons into crates. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She saw the young man in the uniform escorting Dernier around – far away from the explosives, Peggy noted. Dernier was getting the tour. The pitch.

“How did he die?” said Peggy. “Really.” They never tell you, really, Peggy didn’t say. They never tell you the how or why.

“I’m not sure you’re ready for that.”               

Peggy felt a twinge in her neck as she snapped it to the side and glared at Aileen. Aileen looked mildly back at her.

“He was my brother.” 

“Yes,” she said. “And the things he died for,” she put her hand on the thick folder, “are more important than our grief.”

“And what did he die for?”

“For better men,” said Aileen, “in a better world.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Peggy saw something orange blossom beyond the window.

A rumbling boom cut through the rhythmic scraping of the factory noise.

Aileen pushed in beside Peggy, and they both gawped at the scene below.

Sunlight flooded into the factory, the bay doors mangled and blown open. Workers shouted and milled around, and for a moment, it was impossible to tell if there had been an accident or an attack. Then Peggy spotted the two figures at the center of the chaos. It was Dernier and the guard from the cafeteria, standing back to back, both of them wielding weapons plucked from the factory.

Peggy felt Aileen’s body stiffen as she saw them, too.

They both grabbed for Aileen’s pistol at the same time.

Aileen grabbed Peggy’s arm, and Peggy smashed the edge of her palm against Aileen’s face, trying to stun her. Aileen slammed her forehead into Peggy’s, and Peggy stumbled back into the chair, tripping over her bad leg.

The pistol glinted in the light from the factory. Aileen cocked it and pointed it straight at Peggy’s chest. The noise from below was growing louder.

Peggy leapt forward, aiming for Aileen’s knees. Aileen shot, her bullet going between Peggy’s legs. She cussed as Peggy swept her knees out and kicked viciously at the wound on Peggy’s thigh. The pistol clattered to the ground, out of reach beneath the desk.

Papers and books fell around them as they grappled on the floor, banging into the furniture. Peggy punched at Aileen’s face and throat, but the woman was fast and hit just as hard at Peggy’s wound.

With a particularly vicious kick, Aileen stunned Peggy long enough to straddle her. She grabbed Peggy by the throat.

“Don’t make do this,” she snarled as she squeezed. Her teeth were bared, top and bottom.

Peggy choked and reached back, over, struggling for anything. She pushed at the floor with her heels, jolting the pair of them, but not moving and not dislodging Aileen.

The world began to narrow, blackness pushing in on her vision.

Her hand landed on a book. With a desperate swing, she cracked the side of the book against Aileen’s temple – once, twice, again. On the third hit, Aileen’s hands loosened.

Peggy surged upward, bringing her arm around hard enough to knock Aileen sideways and off her.

Peggy lunged under the desk. She dropped the pistol on the first try, but found it and cocked it on the second. She twisted around and fired two shots.

The woman fell back against the book shelf. Blood rushed out of two jagged holes in her chest. Her eyes stared, empty.

Peggy lay on her back, the pistol aimed. She panted.

It was the sound of running footsteps that sparked her into action. She could here people rushing toward the office, toward the sound of gunfire.

Peggy saw the first man in a pair of coveralls turn the corner before she slammed the office door shut and turned its lock.

Below them in the factory, an alarm began to sound. Dernier and the guard walked slowly toward the bay doors, taking cover behind mounds of explosives and metal, backing toward the line of pallets, but they were close to being overwhelmed, and the trucks near the doors would be little use with their tires blown out. It was two against dozens.

Peggy searched the factory floor, looking for something, anything. An advantage. Her eyes fell on the line of vehicles nearest to the office window. A diverse group. Trucks and cars, German and French.

And a tank.

Someone began to kick at the office door, making it shake in its frame.

Peggy stood back from the window and covered her face with her arms. She shot three times through the glass. She crawled on top of the desk and braced herself before she kicked out the rest of the window, using both feet and wincing with every strike.

The office door surrendered, and two men burst into the room. One was Matieu, in pressed uniform. They were momentarily distracted by Aileen’s body. Matieu clapped a hand over his mouth.

Peggy grabbed the thick folder and her brother’s folder, shoving both under her shirt, and the pistol into her waistband. She stepped off the desk and stood on the windowsill, bracing herself with her arms on the wall.

There were at least two stories of nothing between her and the cement factory floor.

“Peggy!” Matieu lunged for her, and Peggy didn’t have a choice. She leapt out of the window, reaching desperately for one of the ceiling struts.

The metal cut into her fingers, but she managed to catch herself, her own weight jerking her arms straight and making her wrists nearly numb with pain.

She looked down, peering over the mound of paper stuffed over her breasts. A few workers peered back up at her. One took a shot that ricocheted against a metal strut and made Peggy wince. She looked around – there, maybe three meters away, there was a ceiling winch.

Starting the motion with a gentle swing of her hips, Peggy began to swing forward, hand over hand, making her way across the strut toward the winch. As she swung, the bulk of the papers began to untuck her blouse from the waist of her skirt.

Peggy let go with one hand for a moment, reaching to tuck in her shirt. Another shot rang out, this time only slightly to her left, and Peggy grabbed for the strut with both hands, cursing.

Peggy pursed her lips and swung faster.

She reached the winch, grabbed the hook, and jammed at the release. She plummeted toward the ground.

As she went, she reached to her waist, trying to stuff her blouse in, save the folders, and retrieve her pistol.

She managed to have the pistol up and ready when she reached the floor, which was lucky, because she’d landed behind a stack of ammunition crates, face-to-face with three workers.

She brandished her pistol, and one of them lunged at her. She shot him before he’d moved two feet, but she couldn’t avoid the other, who swung at her face.

The blow left her blinking at spots, but thankful for her training, because she hadn’t dropped the pistol. The man grabbed at her again, and Peggy raised the pistol, shooting him once through the belly. He yelled as he fell, and his hand, filled with her shirt collar, popped the buttons halfway down to her navel.

The folders spilled across the floor.

By now, the workers had realized they had another insurgent among them, and Peggy saw a group break off and head towards her.

Peggy cursed and crouched down, trying to gather what she could. She did it one-handed, pointing the pistol at the remaining worker. She backed away from Peggy and ducked behind the side of the ammunition pile.

The group was nearly upon her.

With one last desperate grab, Peggy gathered as many of the papers as she could carry and began to run towards the tank. Her path was clear, if she could only make it.

“Dernier!” she screamed. She had little hope that he could hear her over the bullets and the alarm. “Dernier!”

She couldn’t tell if he’d heard her.

She mounted the metal ladder on the side of the tank. She fumbled, for a moment, with the release at the top. Her familiarity with tanks was…theoretical. At best. She got it open before anyone took a shot at her, and with no more ado, she dropped inside.

She stared at the wall of controls and bit at her bottom lip. She remembered Michael had once said something about tanks being like tractors. Her knowledge of tractors was mostly theoretical, too, but at least she’d driven one once. When she was fourteen.

She planted herself in the driver’s seat and reached for what she hoped was the ignition. She prayed for gas.

The tank woke with a roar, and Peggy felt like her heart was going to tumble out through her mouth.

Quite without intention, she began to roll forward.

Peggy yelped and struggled with the controls, fumbling to figure out how she was moving, how to stop, and how to turn.

She rammed into a stack of crate, dumping them over and crushing at least two beneath the treads before she quite had the hang of the brake.

The attention of every pair of eyes turned to her. Including, she saw, Dernier and the guard.

She saw a few of the workers running toward piles of weapons, but she saw more of them running out the bay doors, fleeing the scene.

As she rolled toward Dernier’s hiding place, she grappled with the driver’s bay door. Finally popping it open, she lifted her chin over the edge.

“Dernier!” She couldn’t see him, but she screamed anyway. “Get in the fucking tank!”

A bullet clanged beside her ear, and she dropped back down.

She heard the sound of men climbing on the top of the tank. She felt for her pistol, but kept her eyes on the bay doors.

Two men dropped in beside her. She raised her pistol, and was relieved when she saw the right faces.

“I like your style, _chérie_.” Dernier grinned at her. “I knew you were lying to these fools.”

“Get in the gunner’s nest,” said Peggy, grinning back. Dernier nodded, but it was the guard who climbed into the elevated seat. His hands on the controls were steady.

“No ammunition,” said the guard.

Dernier swore. “Did you grab anything? Grenades?”

“You’ll send the whole place up,” said the guard.  

“We shouldn’t?” Dernier countered.

 “Look,” Peggy snapped. “We’re escaping.”

They were.

They drove out of the bay doors, the metal crumpling and screeching against one side of the tank, but eventually giving way.

They were near the ocean, Peggy realized, peering through the viewfinder. The factory was built along the coast.

It seemed like empty countryside, otherwise. They drove out on the pressed earth road, the engine deafening.

Behind them, workers streamed out of the bay.

They could have given chase. Peggy was sure there were trucks and cars in there. Another tank, perhaps.

But they didn’t.

No one followed.

Peggy wondered after Matieu, but had no answers.

They drive along the coast until they ran out of fuel.

They climbed out the top of the tank and spread themselves over it. The metal was hot from the sun, but it felt nice, almost comforting.

Peggy hadn’t realized her shirt was still hanging open until the guard offered her his uniform jacket. She stared at it for a moment, and then at him, before finally taking it.

“ _Danke_ ,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

She slipped it over her shoulders and wrapped it around herself.

Dernier had taken the folder and was thumbing through the pages she had managed to salvage. She watched him, trying to find a certain name on each page as he turned it.

She burned to go through the papers herself, to track down every mention of Michael and root out the truth. Was it a lie? Aileen could have had another source. Someone high up in the home office. Someone who would have known her name and her dead brother.

Maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe he was undercover. Gathering information on whatever project was so important to these people. If they were truly embedded everywhere, they posed a significant threat. It would make sense.

Peggy rubbed her fingers together. She hadn’t smoked since boarding school, unless it was practice for a cover. But Elodie didn’t smoke.

“I must return to Paris,” said the guard. “I have much to report.”

“You work for the French?” said Peggy.

He nodded. “I was assigned to investigate rumors of a cult growing within the Resistance. I have been here for weeks.”

“Will they come after us?” asked Dernier, looking behind them, toward the factory they could no longer see.

“That woman you were with,” he nodded at Peggy, “she was their leader. They will need time to regroup.”

“What’s your name?” said Peggy.

The German smiled. “Eric,” he said.

Peggy didn’t know if he was lying. It didn’t matter. She turned back to the sunset.

Dernier patted the side of the tank. “Let’s park this at Albert’s place.”

Peggy laughed, and then, startled at the sound, she laughed again. Dernier laughed, too, rubbing tiredly at his face. Eric was at a loss, but he smiled at them indulgently.

“Let’s go to Henri’s,” said Peggy.

Dernier watched the sun for a moment, then nodded.

Dernier gathered the papers and straightened them in the file folder. 

They slid down from the tank and began to walk. They hoped it was toward Marseille.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
